If anyone is up for 3D printing something, I'd like to get more info on some pricing for a product. Send me a PM if you have a printer and might be able to print something for me and ship it. [expecting to pay you for it of course!]

I have an XYZ Davinci 1.0A. Wifey got it on sale before Christmas for $400. The only thing I don't like about it are the proprietary, expensive filament cartridges. BUT...as any reefer worth his salt, I found a way around it!

I got my husband a Creality3D CR10S for Christmas. And buy “got” I mean he picked it out and I just wrapped it....much like any reefing gifts he gets me! We’re currently even now....I have 2 tanks and he has 2 printers.

I'm looking closely at the 10s for my second printer. Can I ask where you got it, and are you satisfied with them?

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We ordered it from Gear Best because they had a really good Black Friday sale on it. Since they are a Chinese company, it took 3 or 4 weeks to get it after ordering.

My husband says if he was to get another one, he’d get it from TinyMachines3d because they do quality control on the machine after it ships from China and if there are any problems you can get warranty service in a couple of days.

Great info and intentions in this chat! I'm a 2nd year engineering student with experience on fusion 360 and solid works, I like to keep nano reeftanks so making small appliances for them via a 3D printer is what I'm interested in accomplishing! I would definitely like to collaborate with other 3D reef hobbyists

It also looks like Monoprice has a deal where you can save $50 on a $150+ purchase if you use your MasterPass... I'd probably get one for $110 if I had that payment option.

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That is a TINY build area. At less than 4” square, you really have at most 3.5” of useable space. These style printers are ok if you only want to print thin, vertical pieces but there are better options (though the entry price is higher).

I ordered an Anet A8 the other day (200 x 200 x 240mm of printing space), it should arrive this week I have a long list of upgrades to print for the printer itself and then I am excited to get into printing some things for my reef! Watching lots of tutorial videos for Fusion 360 in the mean time

I ordered an Anet A8 the other day (200 x 200 x 240mm of printing space), it should arrive this week I have a long list of upgrades to print for the printer itself and then I am excited to get into printing some things for my reef! Watching lots of tutorial videos for Fusion 360 in the mean time

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Looking at Amazon offerings on it and upgrade parts, I'm really impressed. Did you get it from them? A company I never heard of (GearBest) is having a flash sale on it for $145.99. But they're apparently outside the US.

Looking at Amazon offerings on it and upgrade parts, I'm really impressed. Did you get it from them? A company I never heard of (GearBest) is having a flash sale on it for $145.99. But they're apparently outside the US.

PLEASE keep us updated on how the build goes.

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I'll definitely post again when I get it built and test it out. I've read a lot of good and a lot of bad reviews about the Anet printers but the bad reviews seem to be more from people who expect a plug and play out of the box set up which is not what this printer is.

I'm in Australia and found a listing on eBay for $218AUD shipped and it would only take 2-3 weeks to arrive. It would have been $299AUD shipped from Amazon AU and from GearBest it would have been $222AUD shipped. I don't really care about saving $4 but I read a lot of really bad things about the long shipping time and the very bad customer service from GearBest which made me go with the eBay listing. At least if anything goes wrong with the eBay purchase I know I can take it up with eBay and PayPal to get it sorted.

Looking at Amazon offerings on it and upgrade parts, I'm really impressed. Did you get it from them? A company I never heard of (GearBest) is having a flash sale on it for $145.99. But they're apparently outside the US.

PLEASE keep us updated on how the build goes.

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My hub’s newest 3D printer (3D printers are like tanks....you can’t have just 1) was bought through GearBest. Shipping was a little slow - took probably 3 weeks - but we couldn’t beat the price.

I think it would be cool to have an overflow guard printed. I am sick of having to fish my clownfish out of the over flow. Some how he ends up there at least once every couple of months. In my mind this would be a vertical extension of the over flow for the the part above the water is taller. I wouldn’t just want a cover that the fish in question would just end up died up laying on top of.

I've had my budget printer up and running for a month and a half now and I promised I would report back so here is a rundown on what I think about the Anet A8! (spoiler alert, I love it)

First off the printer cost me $218AUD shipped from eBay. I believe you can find them for as low as $150USD when on sale in the states. It has a 220mm x 220mm x 240mm build area which is a decent size and the printer has a heated bed so it can print all the common plastics used in 3D printing (PLA, PETG, ABS, TPU etc).

Assembly.
Building the printer was very straight forward, just think of it like a big Lego kit I found a helpful tutorial on YouTube (done by ModBot) and just took my time. It took me 2 afternoons to put the printer together, spending around 4-5hrs building each afternoon, it could be done quite a lot faster but I would say that's a good estimate for a beginner to building 3D printers.

One thing that I am really loving about this cheap printer is that there is a massive community behind it, so if you do get stuck anywhere along the way there are Facebook groups or numerous online posts that can help you out, pretty much every imaginable issue someone else has already had and gotten help with.

Safety.
The Anet A8 is a cheap printer kit and has gotten a pretty bad rep for being a "fire hazard". When it comes down to it, the printer is a cheap Chinese made kit with cost savings everywhere possible to make it as cheap as possible. But with just 4 recommended upgrades (that are all cheap and easy) to ensure the printer is safe, I don't believe it is any more dangerous than any other 3D printer on the market.

- The power supply. The printer comes with a 20A power supply however it is very poorly made, combine that with the fact that at times the printer can draw close to the 20A maximum and it isn't particularly safe. A good 30A power supply can be found to replace the stock one for as little as $30AUD.
- A fused AC switch. The printer power supply gets wired directly to the AC mains power cord, this means that to turn the printer off you need to constantly unplug the printer. A switch can be wired in before the power supply so that it can be easily turned on and off and even better is a switch with a built in fuse as an added safety measure. A fused AC switch is usually less than $2AUD.
- New heat bed plug. The stock heat bed plug has 6 available pins, but only uses 4 (2 control wires and 2 power wires), each pin is rated to 10A, but the bed can pull up to 13A while heating up. To fix this you can just replace the JST plug with one that uses all 6 pins so the current is distributed between the pins. A new plug that is already wired up using all 6 pins is only $15AUD.
- MOSFET. The main board has inbuilt MOSFETs that are more than up to the job, but the terminals that you screw the heat bed power wires into on the main board are also only rated to 10A. As I said above the bed can draw a bit more than that, so to fix this an external MOSFET can be easily added to take the high current heat bed wires off of the main board. These are only $5AUD.

If you are considering this printer (or any other cheap printer kit) I would recommend you just include these 4 upgrades in the original price. That would mean my Anet A8 cost $270AUD which really is still very affordable for a 3D printer.

Mods.
As soon as it was assembled I printed a 20mm calibration cube with the basic cura slicer settings and was quite stoked with the results. 19.9mm on 2 sides and 20mm on the 3rd, for a sub $300 machine I can't argue with that!

But there is still a good list of mods I got started on to make sure the printer was performing as well as it could (and I find the modding process fun and rewarding too). Most were downloaded from Thingiverse but I also have been teaching myself 3D modeling so to practice I designed the power supply cover myself.
List of mods in order they were printed:
- T frame braces (to try and stop any wobble at the top of the acrylic frame)
- A better part cooling fan (for some plastics the better they are cooled, the better the print will be)
- Power supply cover (to enclose the exposed mains wires and mount the AC switch)
- Filament guides (to ensure the filament is fed cleanly into the hot end)
- Z end stop adjuster (to quickly and finely tune how high above the print bed the hot end sits)
- Y and X belt tensioners (the belts are difficult to get fully tight on your own and can stretch over time so being able to tighten them is fantastic)
- Front and rear braces (putting a proper amount of tension on the Y belt can damage the acrylic frame, the braces also stiffen up the whole frame)
- Electronics enclosure (because it's pretty )

Print quality.
This is my first fray into 3D printing, so I don't really have much to compare with. But so far I am quite amazed at the quality the printer can produce. Every now and then there are some minor defects however every issue so far has been to do with me not putting a setting into the slicer correctly or not leveling the bed properly (I haven't needed to re-level it much since i set the printer up though).

So far the only thing I have printed for the reef is a float switch holder for my ATO (mine conveniently broke soon after I got the printer dialed in). And I have started printing enclosures for a DIY aquarium controller (go and check out the Reef-Pi thread here on R2R! Do it!).

I do have a long list of stuff that I would like to print for the reef, but I have also started studying so it will be slow and steady

Conclusion.
Do I recommend the Anet A8? If your budget is around $250AUD and you enjoy tinkering, making things and modding then yes! For the price it is an awesome printer if you don't mind spending a bit of time to get it up and running how you want it.

The only thing so far that I do not like about the A8 is the acrylic frame. It does the job but it can be too flimsy for high print speeds. I do plan to upgrade to an aluminum frame in the future, however had I of known that there are printer kits that come with an aluminum frame I probably would have just paid the extra up-front for a printer kit that comes with a metal frame. Once you factor the upgrade parts into the cost the printer kits with an aluminum frame are quite attractive.

Because of that I do also recommend considering any other printer kit with the same size or larger build volume that also has an aluminum or metal frame instead of the Anet A8. However I would say that 220mm x 220mm should be considered a minimum "practical" build plate size so I would still rate the A8 above any smaller printer of the same price.

If you just want to open a box and start printing things straight away then I wouldn't recommend this printer. BUT be prepared to pay a lot more for a plug and play style printer, the cheapest I could find (that still had a decent build volume) were around $500AUD + shipping and well outside of my budget of $250AUD.

I've had my budget printer up and running for a month and a half now and I promised I would report back so here is a rundown on what I think about the Anet A8! (spoiler alert, I love it)

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HEY! welcome to another member of the Anet club. Had mine for a while now and I love it. here is mine with my latest project (dosing pump holders) let me know if you run into any problems.
maybe I can help